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Pictures on this site are mostly scans and screen captures by the authors. Please refer to the Copyright Notice page for full details.
This site has been greatly enhanced by reader input, we'd like to extend our thanks to Alan and Alys Hayes, Jaz Wiseman, Andrew Pixley, John Atkinson and all at the British Film Institute, the Avengers forum, all those at Britmovies, Andrew McKay, Marcus Hearn, Liz Reber, Yves Lambert, Liz Eggleston, Mike Noon, David K. Smith, Joseph Lloyd, Christian Pamp, Toby Nelson, Richard Clifton, Stephen Brooke, Tony McKay, Christophe Henry, John Shostrom, Michael Carmody, Claudius Ruhe, Jay Laifman, Jenna Clayton, Mike Cheyne, Steve Lefebvre, Zack Smith, Geoff Barlow, John Cokley and all at Strictly Literary, Stefan Kucinski, Réjean Gosselin, David Fakrikian, Philippe Ferrari, Laurent Chanut, Roberto Falappi, Osvaldo Hamer, DMA Design / Rockstar Games, Simon Abbott, Linus Törnqvist, Scott Brockman, Jennifer M. Cumming, Alistair McGown, Tom Axtell, Susan Minobe, Mark Dorset, Neil Redding, Osvaldo Harmer, Paul Denyer, Peta Laine, Florian Gilbert, Stephen Vincent, Steve Barnett, Steve Walker and all at Product Enterprise, Debbie, Les Kirkpatrick, Jim Ivers, James Dawe, Robin Hicks, Hendrikus Schumacher, Janne, Jennie, Antonio Capriz, Cliff Mark, Judith Rolls, Kari Belvin, Cody Jarrett, Don Mackay, Donald Lee Butler, Barry, Chris Perry, The Internet Movie database (IMDB); and apologise profusely to anyone we've overlooked, it's been a long time.
Mike Noon's site The Avengers - Dead Duck has some of the of the best information I've seen for a long time on an Avengers page - much more than I can supply here, but I'm nowhere near any decent sources of material."Le Monde des Avengers" by Denis Chauvet and ses copins is a wonderful new take on the Avengers en français. Visit their website for a visual feast - including videos - and maybe leave a message on the forum si vous parlez la langue.
Helen of Irvine has a wonderful site, "Avenging Taglines" jam packed with videos and songs, YouTube links and much, much more, which I have sadly neglected to mention. Go to http://www.avengingtaglines.net to see it all.
Geoff Barlow's The Avengers stories are available from Strictly Literary, a Brisbane publishing house.Vol.1 The Weather Merchants (1989) by Dave Rogers and Geoff Barlow
Vol.2 The Monster of the Moor (1990) by Geoff Barlow
Vol.3 Before the Mast.(1991). A Tara short story, produced only in photocopied supplement format
Vol.4 (1994). Contains 2 stories. Moonlight Express and The Spoilsports.
The stories in the first 2 volumes feature Steed and Emma Peel and are set in the 60's - same goes for Moonlight Express, while The Spoilsports features a team-up of all Steed's female associates, who come out of retirement in 1993 to do battle with 90's style diabolical masterminds.
Our review:
Well, Geoff is certainly a fan of the original series, something Don Macpherson (scriptwriter for the movie) could have benefitted from. Geoff know the background and the characters much better than he. This doesn't always translate into world-shattering stories; the stories are good - plot, setting, pace, but they suffer from the curse of all fan-fiction (for that is what they are). Geoff is too close to his subject. Some of his descriptions of Mrs Peel are schoolboy crush material. Nonetheless, bar Patrick Macnee's Deadline, they are the best Avengers stories in the market place.
The prose is bolstered with some really quite fabulous black & white photographs from the original series (mostly from the Diana Rigg era, but a few others are interspersed throughout), and some somewhat dodgy pen & ink drawings. One oddity with the earliest book is that the protagonists' names are misspelt; (Stede and Peele) because of copyright infringement concerns.
A selection of stories for fans. my wife was unable to get through them. I'll give them a carefully considered 9 out of 10 (if you're a fan) - in short, contact Strictly Literary immediately and buy them before the ebay scammers grab the lot!. A distinct improvement on those awful Norman Douglas books.
Hendrikus Schumacher has created a Dutch Avengers site, De Wrekers, which is initially being developed in Dutch, Hendrikus perceiving a gap in the online Avengers library, but will be translated into English soon. He has some great rare images and a Dutch episode listing, which I've added to my International Information guide ("Intercrime"). Great work, Hendrikus!
Frank Faber has also created a Dutch Avengers site, De Wrekers, which was developed in Dutc, and is being translated into English as we speak. He has analogue DVD screen grabs, hand drawings and Dutch broadcast information, plus episode descriptions for all series (but only an episode list for series 1, of course).
Scott Brookman is an indie musician who's recently put out a four track CD single, one of the tracks entitled "Emma Peel". It costs US$5 plus postage, and you can find out more here.